Big Brosky’s Twitter

A heck load of peeps are on Twitter. In truth, you either hate it or you love it. For some, they really hate it. Ive noticed it’s developped popularity amongst teens however, for artists like myself it serves as an incredible tool that brought more visibilty to Mickey Boston hiphop, particulalry with the video Tonka Truck Beat Down video which caught the attention of a half-dozen hiphop webpages.

Twitter brings visibilty, you just gotta know how to navigate the platform. Despite this, Twitter co-founder and current creative director Christopher ‘Biz’ Stone suggested that users should take a break from tweeting and try not to spend too much time on the site. I personally love the advice, if one were to invest so much time on it, well you see what happens: tweeps and tats start tweeting all sorts of useless information just for the sake of tweeting. In essence, it gets whack and ridiculous to see people tweeting all sorts of garbage that the world doesnt need.

Speaking before the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal, Stone described how he had heard of users spending up to twelve hours straight on the social network. “To me, that sounds unhealthy,” he said. In truth, people just leave it running all day without tweeting, I’ve accidently left my twitter on for 2 hours without even tweeting anything myself. As a hiphop artist, activist and social-activist, I have much to say via tweets but even in this context I like to keep things to a minimal, excess on twitter makes you lose followers and backfires because people find you annoying. My advice, use Twitter in wise moderation.

Stone said he thinks it’s better if users use the site to find information, or learn something, and then log out. “I think that’s a much healthier engagement. Obviously, we want you to come frequently,” added Stone. Despite such givens, Twitter is a tool in which 100 million users log-in at least once per month. Not all twitter users actually tweet; they just sit there reading the tweets that appear on their timeline. In my case, I use twitter for breaking news, keeping in touch with groupies, answering inquiries, touching base with emcees, DJs and radio DJs and producers. As we move forward, social media is a part of quotidien life and twitter has now become a part of that reality. In truth, it has really bridged a gap between people.

One thing I enjoy about Twitter is the fact that I can have direct access to artists, emcees, hiphop magazines, blogs, graffiti artists, b-boys, DJs and fellow hiphop artists. Do they all tweet back? Belive it or not but in my case, yes they do. Shouts to Dallas Penn.

Twitter reportedly has over 100 million active users (who log in at least once a month), while 40% of 500-million users don’t actually tweet — they only log in to read the tweets in their timeline. The service has been used for everything from reporting breaking news to facilitating revolution, but the potential for addiction remains one of its criticisms. In truth, people get addicted to anything screen-oriented. Addictions become habits and some habits die hard while others die easily, in Truth, will Twitter last? Will some new platform arrive in the social media mobile realm and knock Twitter down? Maybe Twitter is just a trend? Despite all of these ideals aforementioned, Twitter is here now so let’s make use of it until the next big social media thing/trend comes along.

The next thing I love about Twitter: the fact that it is LIVE. While the home Oneton was painting, my groupies and followers get the live feed off the tweets hence allowing them see the art in process live via photographs. I enjoy the live element, makes it more in your face, giving everyone access right away, like when Oneton and Mickey Boston are recording in the studio, we just take a shot and let the followers see in real time.

While tossing some questions on Twitter out there, there is no denying that Stone also discussed the initial failures of the social networking platform, describing how when they started Twitter “nobody thought it was a very good idea”, but they continued to build something “fun.” I personally wouldnt know if Twitter is fun, Im not having too much fun with it, I just use it and use it because it is satisfying the need of a rapid paced realm in which we constantly crave and demand to be updated up to the second. Yes, that’s how current we all want our news, we want and desire to know what is happening right now, live.

Having said this, I close with a quote from Stone which highlights what I was saying just above: “The more connected we get through all social media, the more humanity can move as one,” said Stone. “Maybe I’m just being hallucinogenically optimistic, but the idea that once we’re connected we’ll be able to move together, suggests we’ll be able to get a lot more done in a lot shorter time.”

Follow that good Mickey Boston on that good Twitter feed @mickeyboston